The Mobian Chronicles

Book I

Chapter VII: 'Clash of Tides'

As the five children marched off to Undercity, the tides of war in the tumultuous world outside marched on as well. Mid-day saw another fateful battle of the Great War unfold, one that would set in motion events that would change the very course of the war itself. Far to the north, in the snowy shadows of the Galewind Mountains, another group of Mobians met in the name of equally covert endeavors. Halloway's Hellcats, an all-feline group of special operatives named after a terrible beast in Overlander mythology, went over the plans for their mission in a makeshift bunker amidst the roar of battle outside.

Royal Knight Corps, Special Operative Colonel Nathan Halloway, codenamed 'Frost'; the veteran leader of his special unit was an aging white cat with a dusty black uniform and a cigar permanently joined with his mouth. "Here's the plan." He unraveled a map of the surrounding area and the nearby Overlander base, explaining the detailed operation in his grizzled voice. "Right now, we're at this point on the map. Captain St. John's troops are over here, attempting to break through the Overlander line. When the Captain gives the all clear, we're breaching the facility wall and entering at this point." He put a pin on the wall of the base's storage area. "Blowout, can you rig something to punch a hole in the wall?" He looked up at the group's demolitions expert, who was mimicking his cigar-chewing actions with a lit stick of dynamite in her mouth. "Put it out."

"Aw." Rikta 'Blowout' Din was the Hellcats' expert on explosives; a certifiably insane pyromaniac with more subspecies of cat in her heritage than anyone cared to guess. Why the mottled, spotted, and striped cat of many colors wasn't in an institution was a mystery to anyone but Halloway, who kept her in the group for her encyclopedic knowledge of all things explosive. "You're no fun, Frosty." Rikta pulled the fuse out of her dynamite-cigar and sighed. "Let me check inventory with Mr. Splodey."

'Mr. Splodey' was Blowout's pet hand grenade. She painted a yellow happy face on it and kept it close to her at all times. Mr. Splodey often relayed crucial advice and tactical information to her; information that, of course, only Rikta could hear. The rest of her team kept well clear of Mr. Splodey, for fear of whatever improvements the brilliant but deranged demolitionist might have made to his destructive payload. "Mr. Splodey says we have enough stuff to make a pretty good hole, no problem!"

"All right then," Halloway continued, undaunted neither by his subordinate's madness, nor by the artillery strike that shook the roof of the bunker moments later. "There's a hallway here, right outside the room we're breaching into, it runs a large length of the base. Broadside, you're setting up in the doorway and covering that hall. Are you okay with being alone on this one?"

Broadside, real name Aleshan Tygris was a hulking orange tiger; the heavy weapons and support specialist for the group. He'd removed an old Overlander heavy repeating cannon from one of their large powered-armor soldiers during a battle years ago and serviced it into a weapon he could carry and use. His gun, which he named 'Kisha', was as large as most of his teammates, and could fire a continuous spray of bullets in a wide angle for long periods. He adjusted his numerous straps of ammunition and gave a bellowing laugh in his thick accent. "They will not dare attack me, they will be high-tailing it for cover once Kisha and I are set up."

"As soon as we have our cover, the rest of us are going to move down the hall to the main computer room. Jack, you're neutralizing guards ahead of us." Halloway paused for his comrade, a fair-furred Siamese clothed in the trappings of a martial artist. "You with us, Jack?"

Jack 'Bounder' Acres, the teams close combat expert was a master of the martial art of Kalu-Fela-Fen, 'Claw, Feather, and Fin' in modern Mobian. A hard-hitting martial art that was designed to be usable no matter the body type of the user, it took years of practice and learning to master. Jack nodded slightly, never opening his eyes as he sat, mentally preparing for the battle. "Mhm."

"Once we're through the last of the security measures, I want you to make the data grab, Johnny. I'll cover you myself. When you have the Overlanders' new ciphers secured, we'll pull out and exit through the hangar."

Jonathan 'Shadow' Harrison, a black cat in an equally black bodysuit served as Halloway's second-in-command and stealth operative. Young, talented, and extremely beloved of the general public, he was, in fact, the military officer who had saved Dr. Kintobor's life and brought him to Mobotropolis. "Sounds good enough to me. Cocoa's on support, I'm guessing?"

"That's right, Johnny." A soft voice came in through all the team members' headsets. Cocoa Reece, codenamed 'Nightshade' was the team's coordinator, driver, and, unbeknownst to the others, Harrison's lover. "I'm outside in the transport, getting things prepped. Looks like St. John's troops are getting ready to make a move."

An icy rain had started up outside, making the ground cold and muddy as the remnants of the Royal Knight Corps fell in to formation. Dirt and blood was caked on their swords and spears, and on the damaged, incomplete suits of once shining and ornate plate armor they wore. At the head of the group, walking its length and delivering a speech to the battle-hardened troops was a tall, commanding skunk in his mid-thirties. Captain Geoffrey St. John had lost everything in the war, family and friend alike; but he held on to the one thing that no Overlander could take; vengeance. He'd earned the nickname 'Suicide St. John' for leading a number of impossible charges through Overlander weapon fire, and soldiers had gravitated to two camps of opinion about him; one would not fight under him for any reason, and the other would charge right behind him into certain death. The Mobian men and women with him today fell in to the latter camp, and his feelings and words resonated with their own war histories.

"Overlanders are all lying murderers! They butcher our families, they burn our houses and steal our lands, yet they have the gall to call us the savages, the animals!? They started this war with unprovoked aggression, borne of jealousy and xenophobia; they are the animals!" He readied a bolt in his wrist-mounted crossbow, and tucked his massive spear under his arm, pointing it out to the fortification that loomed ahead in the misty cold rain. "They hide behind walls and guns and machines because they are cowards! They fear tooth and claw and what we will do to them if we reach them, because we will not forget or forgive them for our cities, our families, and our lives! If the Overlanders think we are animals, then show them what animals will do when cornered, give the monsters no mercy, because you will receive none!" St. John spat and hissed his speech with the fury of one who had nothing left in life but his hatred; he brandished his spear, took a step forward and shouted the fateful charge. "For Mobotropolis!!! LONG LIVE THE KING!!!"

The thunder of a hundred metal-clad feet shook the soft ground as the searchlight atop the Overlanders' concrete and metal fortification lit up in alarm. "It's a chaaaaaarge!!" The lone, frightened cry of an Overlander sentry rang out above the din of rushing feet and the whistle of sharp, hungry metal swinging through the air in warning of what was to come. The large, multi-barreled machinegun turret atop the fortification opened fire with a roar, sweeping through the charging Mobian ranks, the sharp slivers of metal it fired streaking through the foggy air like beams of light.

Overlander soldiers filed out to the field in front of their base, clad in their dark brown plastic body armor and faceless, black visored helmets. They raised their battle rifles in unison as they fell in to the firing line, hoping to cut down the entire charge before they were forced into melee. The average Overlander soldier was issued no melee weapon and had no close-combat training; the brandished swords of the incoming mob would cut them apart ten-to-one if the Mobians reached the front line. "Steady!" Hold your ground! Seeing his words have little effect on the morale of the line of soldiers, the most ornately armored member of the group removed his helmet and looked over the battlefield with his own eyes, running an armored hand over his short red hair. He barked his demands at the soldiers under his command. "I said hold your ground you maggots! Any man who runs gets it in the back! Take aim and open fire!"

Geoffrey St. John saw the knight beside him take a spray of shots and roll forward in a lifeless crumpled heap, he felt a lucky hit catch him in the shoulder, another struck him in the chest; but Mobian armor was not a thing of decoration, even in this age. The aging plate mail absorbed the brunt of the force and the bullets sank lightly into his flesh, deadened instead of deadly. Ahead, the first of the Overlanders began to see the face of doom; the greenest recruits, St. John guessed. One lowered his rifle and stared from behind his reflective faceplate. Another began to shake, lowering his gun and standing up. Those that stood began to slowly take a few steps back, and then they broke into an all out run, discarding their guns as they fled back to the base in a bid to save themselves.

"Cowards!" True to his promise, the red-haired Overlander captain drew his pistol and opened fire on his retreating soldiers, the hot slivers of metal whistling past them or lodging ineffectively in their ballistic armor. "You'll just get it worse when they run you down! Keep firing! Keep firing!" He picked up a discarded rifle by the barrel and raised it like a club. He'd survived a charge once, and he knew what was about to come. Better to die swinging than be cut down like the rest of them. His eyes locked on St. John's and he rushed ahead of the line, spitting a curse as he swung for the skunk's head.

Geoffrey caught the Overlander commander squarely in the chest with his spear, the sharp tip bursting straight through his ceramic chest plate. Dropping his gun, the dying man grabbed at the haft of the spear with both hands and backpedaled uncontrollably as the skunk rushed forward with him, using his armored body as a shield from the bullet fire that now frantically focused on him. When he released the spear and sprung past it into the front line, the spear's momentum carried the Overlander to the ground, pinning him in the muddy soil as the spear raised to a vertical position, a gust of icy wind catching the Mobian flag at its base and setting it aflutter in victory.

One Overlander soldier had rose that morning and donned his armor, confident that the high-tech plastics and ceramics of his light-weight battlesuit would keep him safe from any gunfire. What it would not protect him from was two-hundred pounds of angry wolf who smashed him to the ground and drove a great-sword straight through his armor while shouting what sounded like a woman's name. Beside him, another Mobian knight swatted one of the faceless soldiers down with the flat of his axe. The next swing cut straight through the plastic rifle the Overlander had raised as a shield and met his face. Mobian craftsmanship was a legendary thing, and armor that stopped even the most powerful bullets was simply not strong enough to withstand the size and force of their master-crafted martial weapons in the hands of trained knights.

Geoffrey had used his spear attack's momentum to leap upon another soldier, drawing his short sword and plunging it into the flailing Overlander. He fell with the body, taking aim and catching another soldier with a crossbow bolt to his unprotected neck. Ahead, however, was something more capable of dealing with melee combat than the average Overlander trooper. "Look out! It's a walker!"

A large, manned weapon had waddled its way to the melee. The Overlanders had a mechanical, humanoid walking machine that stood at twice a soldier's height and could be fitted with a number of weapons on its arms. This one featured a rotating circular saw which easily cut down the first Mobian to rush at it. Its other hand opened up and released a gout of flame that incinerated an arc of incoming enemies in its path. A sudden spear whistled through the air and wedged itself in the machine's flamethrower-hand. The sudden backflow of flame and fuel blew the arm apart and the walking machine fell over with a crash. Before it could act, it was set upon by dozens of clawed hands, ripping and tearing at the armor and the screaming pilot inside.

St. John rose to his feet and surveyed the field. The turret atop the wall struggled pointlessly to pan down to aim at them, whirring and making terrible grinding sounds as it tried to reach targets far too close to attack. Geoffrey eyed an unused grenade launcher on the ground and pried it out of lifeless hands. "This'll do it. You, soldier!" He gestured to one of the smaller, more agile members of his troop, a young black rabbit, and threw the weapon to him. "You've handled a gun before, take that turret out."

"Aye, sir!" The rabbit knelt and took careful aim with his new weapon, sighting the turret and firing. The recoil knocked him onto his back with a loud 'thud' and a smoking projectile streaked through the sky. In a brilliant flash and an explosive roar, the turret evaporated and only a smoking crater in the wall remained.

With no Overlander troops on the outside of the base still living or at least no longer capable of combat, St. John raised a bloody gauntlet to the radio headset he wore and contacted the second party in the operation. "Frost. Get your people moving, we have the front gates."

Inside the Hellcat's transport vehicle, Colonel Halloway nodded into his receiver and donned his dark-colored beret. "The crazy skunk made it. Let's get inside."

A short trip across the calming battlefield later, the team arrived at the walls of the Overlander Facility. Halloway was the first off the transport as its large loading door opened, and he greeted his friend with a salute. "It's good to see you alive, Geoffrey."

"You too, Nathan." St. John saluted back, and then leaned back against a wall to let his medic continue to try to remove the bullet lightly embedded in his shoulder. "Be careful on this one, I don't like it. They didn't field the kind of force you might expect for a facility this size… I think they've committed to an internal defense. Do you want some of my men to go with you?"

The aging cat shook his head, dismissive of the notion. "No, Geoffrey. If there's a counterattack here, you'll need all the men you have." Nathan turned back to the transport and gave the signal for deployment. "All right soldiers! Broadside, get that monstrosity of yours ready to deploy, Blowout, I want a ten-by-ten foot hole in that wall right there. Bounder, Shadow, you're with me. Are we all linked up on the comm. channel, Nightshade?"

"You're all showing green to me, Sir." The soft voice of their communications officer broke the radio silence. Cocoa leaned to the side in her driver's seat and gave the thumbs up as the rest of the team exited the vehicle. "I'll keep the engine running, good luck in there."

"What do you think, Mr. Splodey?" Rikta started up a conversation with her hand grenade, which she balanced on her tail in front of her. "Should we go with the shaped charge, or just make a breaching bomb? Really? You don't say? Well, I was thinking…"

"Just do it, you crazy mongrel." Harrison slapped her across the back of the head as he passed by, making her growl at him like a canine as watched him take position.

"Meanie. All right, I'll just rig something up…" Rikta opened her kit and went to work on the wall, idly contact juggling Mr. Splodey about on her long tail.

Broadside stepped into position, spinning the barrels of his massive, cannon-like machinegun. "Heh heh heh… Kisha and I are ready for action!"

"One disappearing wall, ready to go, sir!" Rikta packed her tools hurriedly and raced to a safe distance, clutching a detonator in her trembling, excited hands. "Can I do it now? Can I? Huh, huh?"

"On three, everybody." Col. Halloway flicked the safety off on his pistol and drew a deep breath, readying his tired frame for one more mission. "One… Two…"